I’m OK with Quitting and You Should Be Too

On October 30 I made a declaration in front of the world, which means I posted it on Facebook that I was jumping back in the blogging game. I was tired of carrying the shame of not posting since April 2014. Yes, April 2014. With a mix of excitement and a little trepidation, I signed up for BlogHer’s #NABLOPOMO (National Blog Post Month) Challenge that encouraged writers to blog every day for a month.

Every. Day. For. A. Month.

I started off with promise. I tweeted @BlogHer to signal I was in it to win it and they added me to their bloggers list. I had plenty of ideas and everyday experiences that I jotted down in a new notebook I bought with stone paper…whatever that is. BlogHer even provided prompts to jump start my writing brain if it was out of order. But nothing came.

I did everything I knew to set an atmosphere. I put on my Bobby McFerrin Pandora station, my writing music, and burned Thieves Oil. I’d stare at the computer screen for hours, hours I really didn’t have to give with an already full schedule, and still nothing. I went back to my fancy paper notebook, thinking maybe literally putting pen to paper would help. Nada. The words were flying all around me, but I couldn’t land them to save my life.

My hopes of being the Comeback Kid started to fade away. Scrolling through the BlogHer site, I envied other writers who announced their relief in overcoming the odds to catch up on their posts. Meanwhile, I was in my petty corner, like… so what. To make myself feel better I pictured those other writers as full-time bloggers with nothing but writing on their minds while sipping their Starbucks or coffee from those little Keurig packs, but I’m sure that’s not entirely true. Maybe they’re full-time Moms with toddlers running circles around them or women with demanding careers. Maybe they have their own health battles and were able to do it.

The other night, in the midst of some deep writer’s angst, I hit rock bottom and was wondering if I had everybody fooled in my nearly 11 years of being a professional writer. Now, days into this month’s challenge and I have one blog to show. One! I realize this challenge was about much more than getting my blog off the ground, it was to test my chutzpah as a writer. Real writers can do these challenges, and I’m a writer.

I left my home office and closed the door last night with defeat. My husband, also a writer, could smell it. He said this early in the challenge, but last night in my exhaustion I finally heard his words: Stop putting so much pressure on yourself.

I am the Queen of Push Through, ask my husband and friends it’s true. But more often than not it contributes to my downfall.

I had to accept that work and personal writing deadlines were reality and were already overcrowding my plate. I had to really get that long days coupled with lupus fatigue and the added bonus of some monkey wrenches being thrown at me health-wise, that my exhaustion was real and not imagined. No amount of “push through” and grit was going to enable me to finish this challenge and be a sane Gabby, nevertheless one with joy and peace at the end.

So I put on my big girl panties and made an executive decision: I quit. I quit my self-imposed expectations and challenged myself to a more realistic goal to write at least once a week. Right now in my life, that expectation is more my speed. With the peace of practicing good self-care, I feel like a revived woman and writing is now therapeutic, as it should be.

There’s probably some other things in my life I need to quit. Little by little, I notice my Spirit sifting the decisions I make. Are they helping me reach my goals, my purpose? Is this the kind of freedom and peace I can experience every time I make a decision to care for myself?

You ever feel like you’re in a rat race with nothing to show? Or maybe there is something to show, but it’s not for you, it’s for someone else. Maybe it’s time for you to do some quitting of your own.

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About the author

Gabrielle
Gabrielle is a former journalist, turned quasi Lupus advocate who uses her words and candid experiences of living with Lupus to spread awareness.